Stanley Elkin - Boswell

All genuinely great men were martyrs whose characters and purposes were like those double ramps in architecture which wound and climbed and never touched in a concrete illusion of strand. The rest of us climbed those ramps in the delusion that the fellow we saw across the gaping space moved on the same path. It was the barber-pole condition of life, and we assumed in good faith some ultimate matrix common to all. But isolate, isolate —that was the real lesson. Hecuba was nothing to any of us.

Then I saw Lome’s briefcase, the one I had carried to his room. He had put it down on a counter when he was talking to the official and when they went off together — to look, I suppose, at the radar screens — he had forgotten it.

I did not hesitate. Isolate, isolate. I moved up to the counter and slid the case inside my raincoat. Inside would be the tips, the speculations, the deals, the weird money lore, the master plan. Inside would be the inside information.

With my prize I went into the man’s toilet. I pushed a dime into the slot, locked myself in a private booth, sat down on the toilet seat and opened the case, feeling as I did a thrill of greed. I was like some pirate before a treasure chest.

The lists and charts which tumbled out of the briefcase were like some paper abstraction of golden bracelets and jeweled crowns and ruby-mouthed statues. There were lists of holdings in foreign counties, discussions of economic prospects for various markets. These I ignored. There were plans for taking over firms, suggestions for mergers, passbooks from five dozen banks. There were lists of stocks which Lome owned, and signed proxies, and a handful of prospectuses for firms which Lome was evidently interested in. But I could make nothing out of them. Perhaps an expert, someone familiar with the language of money, might have been able to take Lome’s hints, but I couldn’t. Before the network of statistics and the strange bookkeeper’s vocabulary I was helpless. I began to fear that I had acted in haste, and as I continued to go through the briefcase I felt increasingly frustrated. In despair I began to stuff the papers back into the briefcase and was about to zip it shut when I saw something I had overlooked before. It was written in pen on a piece of lined, yellow, legal-size paper. The fact that it was on legal paper somehow gave it, even before I read it, the integrity of an official document. I felt a peculiar anticipatory excitement, and as I read over the paper it mounted steadily. Lome had written in his own hand:

The following firms will issue stock on the New York Exchange within the next six months.

There followed a list of four companies I had never heard of. The note had been dated the previous week. Lome went on:

My own plan is to purchase substantial blocks of the first two stocks and to hold them in perpetuity.

“My plan too,” I said hoarsely.

Suddenly, inside the pay toilet, there came the sound of an enormous peal of thunder, growling, sustained, hoarse. For a moment the lights dimmed. The electric circuits hummed and sang and then restored themselves.

An act of God, I thought, feeling suddenly warm, befriended, destiny’s child, son of Herlitz, son of fate, son of luck and chance and circumstance.

My invitation to the Irving Gibbenjoys’ came today. I glanced at the envelope and called the caterer immediately for the guest list. My contact, Davis, was out, so I left word for him to call me at the hotel. Everyone has a weakness, Davis a particularly filthy one, but he can be put off easily enough. I let him watch me in my shower. It’s a torment for him, more pain than pleasure. He sits on the closed toilet lid and talks shyly. He pretends, I think, that we’re somewhere else, in a drawing room or a restaurant. When I turn toward him to dry myself, more often than not he looks away. Davis does not have the strength to go with his weakness. No man without character can support a vice.

Once I’m established I won’t have to rely as heavily on Davis or on my other contacts. Lord, when will it happen? Of course, they’re not all Davises. Beverly Brain in Chicago wants to marry me. Beverly is nice, of course, but she’s insignificant. It’s amazing how many of my contacts fall in love with me — Sheila Mobley in Boston, Anor Lyon in San Francisco, Jeanette Bouchard in Washington. The trick is to make yourself completely dependent on them. That’s why traveling salesmen often have such good relationships with their customers. Ah, but it takes a toll. I can relax only with Nate Lace in New York. Nate is the only one of my contacts who’s in on the joke of my life. I swear I wish the others were, but if I were to say to Anor, “Anor, honey, it’s just supply and demand with me,” she’d never do me another favor. Occupational hazard — like cave-ins for a miner. It’s always what something else does to us. The fault, dear Brutus, lies in our stars that we are underlings.

Still, one has to get along with people. Live and let live. Be let to live and live. If they were all like Nate, though…Anyone who says I don’t work hard is crazy. Look at Philadelphia, for God’s sake. I was stymied in Philadelphia for years. The Main Line was busy! I saw the columnists, the society bandleaders, the golf pros. Who didn’t I see! Nothing. Then I had this idea about the invitations. Idea? It was an inspiration, actually. Suddenly I remembered the prom bids from high school. They were gorgeous, I remembered: cellophane and satin, brocade and cardboard, with long silken tassels that were attached to the pegboards of the parented. The silly, romantic apotheosis of the Occasion. Each printed cardboard page vaguely visible through a covering of waxy, spidery paper, shimmering history books in raised type; the date, the name of the hotel, the band, the charity, the sponsor, the committee; a closing poem, even a page for remarks (“Willy said he loved me and squeezed me up there”). Then I thought, Where do they get that stuff? A service, of course, a service, and I remembered something I had once seen on a tray in a hall.

I called the Philadelphia Board of Education. “Do you give prizes for calligraphy?”

“What’s that?”

“Do you give prizes for calligraphy? Handwriting.”

“Just a minute, please. I’ll check.”

I got the names of all the prize winners from 1925 through 1951. But when I looked in the phone book I could find only a handful of names. Turnover. I called those that were listed.

“Excuse me, madam, does Gerald Vidilowski live there, please? I understand Mr. Vidilowski holds The Brotherly Love Award for Penmanship. I can use a man like that in my work.”

“Mr. Vidilowski wrote a beautiful hand, but he’s dead,” the woman sobbed.

I called the residence of Miriam Spidota. “Excuse me, ma’am, are you the Miriam Spidota who won the 1946 Brotherly Love Award for Penmanship?”

“Yes, that’s right,” the woman said brightly.

“Do you still wield the pen, ma’am?”

“How do you mean, ‘wield the pen’?”

“I’ll be direct, Miss Spidota. Are you now employed in addressing envelopes?”

“Is this Harry? Harry, is this a rib? Harry?”

“Please, Miss Spidota. I’m very serious.”

“Gee,” she said. “I thought you were that pimp, Harry. You a salesman? One of the boys give you my number?”

The third on the list was Davis. He told me nervously that he worked for Affairs, Inc. I arranged to meet him, and that was that. Keys to the City.

Davis called back at six. The Gibbenjoy affair sounds disappointing. Ray Pilchard will be there, of the Pilchard Hotel chain. Leroy Buff-Miner of the pharmaceutical house. Gabrielle Gal — I’ve heard some of her phony recordings of Greek songs. Still, she’s very popular in café society. Dr. Morton Perlmutter, an archeologist. A Mr. and Mrs. Nelton Fayespringer of Pittsburgh. She’s one of the Carnegies, Davis says, and he’s one of the few Pennsylvania industrialists without his own town named after him. All in all, there were about three dozen names, some of which I didn’t recognize at all. I’ll go, of course, because it’s the opening of the season, but it looks pretty grim.